


A Letter to Therapy

by MetaAllu



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Season 2 spoilers, possible triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-01
Updated: 2012-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 23:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetaAllu/pseuds/MetaAllu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone calls them broken, someone else calls them twisted, and no one argues because it's not a lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Letter to Therapy

Those who are outcasts wear it like a title, _The Outcast_ ; like a badge of honour; like it matters; like they will be remembered. They drown themselves in their individuality and tell themselves that they are of great import, and those who mock them and push them aside are fools. There is a hand on his back, warm and broad as blood drips down from his curls.

He understands now, of course, that being an outcast makes you just that: An outcast. Being rejected from the societal Deus ex Machina will not make you matter; you must make yourself matter; you must take your destiny into your own hands and scream until you are seen. Sherlock always made sure that he was seen. He made sure that everyone knew he was there, and that they could not forget him. More often than not this was through injury, but he would rather leave a trail of enemies than no trail at all.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _Sometimes I worry I'll be left behind,_ says John Watson's leg. So John Watson moves into Sherlock's flat and no one says they're in love because they're not, and everyone asks if they're dating because they're not. John Watson wears a white flag over his eyes and as time goes by he wipes his bloodied hands on it until they're clean. He's wonderful when he's shouting, and when he puts his bloody flag in his pocket and becomes a soldier. 

John Watson lives on a cloud, and when they sit alone in their flat with cups of tea, he looks at Sherlock with the eyes of a man, and the touches him with the hands of an outcast. "Sugar?" he asks every time, even though Sherlock always says no. Who knows what they're waiting for. 

After Sherlock dies, John Watson washes the white flag until it's clean, and wraps it over his eyes while Sherlock bleeds, blood dripping down from his curls. There is no warm hand on his back, no school uniform to stain. There are no more people to point fingers at him and call him an outcast, instead they print his name in finger-staining ink and call him one of them. 

And so Sherlock comes back to the world of the living and tears down all of their walls, and their papers, and stains his fingers with ink. He takes his things out of carefully marked boxes, and lives with the bruises. He doesn't live with John Watson because he limps when they do. They sit across from each other in coffee shops, with a carefully established wooden barrier between them — a table with rickety legs and a newspaper stuffed under one of the feet. It's easy to laugh, and John has wrinkles where he didn't have wrinkles before.  
  
  
  
  
  
Sherlock lives among dusty, erudite tomes, and there's no one to complain when he keeps a head in the fridge or shoots holes in the walls. He's never been in love, but he's always been an outcast, and his tea cools forgotten by his side with no one to warm it up or toss it out. Outcasts don't fall it love, and neither does John Watson. That doesn't stop him from getting married, or from screaming at Sherlock until he's blue in the face. It doesn't stop Sherlock from driving her away, and it doesn't stop them from ending up with no one but each other, and then they don't even have that, because John blames him — Of course he blames him, it's _his fault_ — and they don't look at each other or go for coffee. 

But Sherlock doesn't fall in love; and John Watson doesn't fall in love. Someone calls them broken, someone else calls them twisted, and yet someone else uses a colourful _fucked up_ , and no one argues because it's not a lie. 

No one argues when they move in together or when John holds a gun to Sherlock's head. No one pretends to understand the outcasts, and no one tries. John's back aches with weight and his therapist's name is Sarah. No one asks; no one guesses. _Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: The Shakespearian Tragedy_. 

John says, "It's not a tragedy," and everyone nods their heads, but no one believes it. A death bed is just like any other bed, but you don't know how you got there, and you don't know what you're doing there or how long you'll be there. Sherlock's death bed is made of concrete and the back of his own skull, and his second death bed is made of unwept tears.


End file.
